Among the highlights: Ingrid Law's Scumble, Over the Rainbowillustrated by Eric Puybaret with a 3-song CD by Judy Collins, The Night Before Christmas performed by Peter, Paul and Mary, and illustrated by Puybaret, Tammi Sauer's Mostly Monsterly, J. Patrick Lewis's Kindergarten Cat and Tad Hills's How Rocket Learned to Read.

Anyone can enter a Denver-area school in the giveaway, whether you live in-state or not -- school staff, district administrators, families of students, friends, etc.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A boy stares down his biggest fear in the forest by refusing to believe it's real, in this clever, remarkable book.

With subtle, artful cues, award winners Williams and Swiatkowska show readers that monsters can only get to us if we think they can.

Once upon a time, despite all of the scary things he'd heard about the forest, a boy decided to walk through it, though we don't know exactly why.

Maybe he was on an errand or he lived nearby or he just wanted to go from here to there. But it didn't really matter because there he was.

He was in the very place everyone said had big, dark trees that block sunlight and cliffs that he could fall off. You know, a regular, ordinary forest where there are probably bears who growl and wolves who howl.

And how does everyone know this? "Because if you listened very hard you could almost hear them," Williams writes.

A boy is haunted by crackling bones as woods transform into spooky creatures in this wickedly fun read-aloud.

As the boy in a skeleton jumpsuit heads home after trick-or-treating, he walks with his cat through a moon-lit wood that gets spookier with every step.

"On this winding road, on this windy night, / Clouds hide the moon -- / and / in / creeps / fright," Day writes, as imaginary cloud shapes sneak up from behind, one a clutching hand, the other a writhing serpent.

Bates brilliantly mimics the inky obscurity of night using parallel lines of ink, or hatching, over saturated blues, and delights with imaginative scenes of clouds, branches and leaves twisting into frightful sights.

The further the boy walks into the woods, the faster he steps. The wind rustles in his ear and he thinks he sees a bat with hollow eyes in the canopy of a leafless tree. Or is that just twigs meshed together?

Then a spooky voice calls out on the breeze, "Cracklety-Clack. Bones in a Sack. They could be yours -- if you look back."

The boy is so scared by the wind, his voice squeaks. "Who?" he asks, "Do you mean me?" On the opposite page, an owl with glowing orange eyes hoots, "Whooo else?" as an owl-like cloud dives down from the sky.

Next, the wind whips up rusty leaves into a ghostly swirl and it feels as if a ghost's tail is brushing past his face. The boy panics and race through the trees, holding his ears as the haunting voice grows louder.

As he looks up into a circle of towering bare trees, the upper branches seem to contort into ghosts. Their arms are raised as if to pounce as a ghostlike cloud looms over the boy with a gaping mouth.

A dying boy is sent into the afterlife too soon and unless he can outwit a ruler who's corrupted the underworld city of Ghostopolis and find a ghost trafficker, he may not get back to Earth.

In this crazy-fun graphic novel, a boy with an incurable disease named Garth Hale is accidentally zapped into the underworld and goes in search of a Tuskagee airman who may know how to get him home.

The problem is, an evil mortal named Vaugner has taken over Ghostopolis from Airman Joe, who created the city so ghosts would have a place to live, and now Vaugner wants to destroy Garth, the only other living being there.

Vaugner believes Garth could threaten his reign because humans can harness supernatural powers in the underworld with their imagination. (Soon after arriving, Garth discovers he can fly and whip electrical balls at bad guys.)

As the tale opens, Garth is living alone with his mother and, though aware that his life is fleeting, he dreams of learning to fly a plane one day like his late grandpa, who became estranged from Garth's mother when she was a teen.

Then one day while reading in bed, Garth's life among the living is unexpectedly shortened by a night "mare."

A dead horse has snuck back to Earth from Ghostopolis and jumped through Garth's bedroom wall on top of him. Just as a ghost wrangler hits the send button on a machine that jettisons ghosts back to the hereafter, Garth and the mare evaporate in a puff of ions.

Anxious fans are hanging from stands in Lies's delightful followup to the best-selling Bats at the Library and Bats at the Beach.

Award-winning Lies reprises his wildly popular storyline about the escapades of bats who sneak into popular places after people go to sleep, this time with a tale about bats who swing on the wing.

Furry bats with leathery wings and pointy ears take flight to the ball park for a match against a rival team that's beaten them in every game and try to squeak in a win as the sun edges up the horizon.

As the story opens, some of the bats are waiting on tip-toe in their attic roost, their claws in mitts and caps on heads. They peer over a slat in the roof's vent and wish, just this once, they could push down the sun so night would come faster.

"Restless wings begin to itch -- / excitement's at a fever pitch," Lies writes in perfect rhyme, and at last it's time to soar to the stadium -- some of the bats to play ball, others to hang upside down from a tent's frame.

As the bats swoop under a red-and-white canopy, they're awed by the brightness of the field, as floodlights turn night to day, and they pass over a fence banner touting garlic flies and gnatwurst.

With no darkness to waste, flying vendors dive by fans, selling mothdogs and Cricket Jack candy, while on the field, ground crews roll out field lines with a shaker can of powdered sugar, and rake mounds and runs with forks.

Then silence descends as two bats in red uniforms fly in the U.S. flag. A bat in a fur-trimmed purple vest belts out an anthem song as a tiny long-earred bat to the side missteps and belts out a deafening note from his tuba.

After rescuing a hobgoblin in Foxwist Wood, a servant boy discovers a terrible curse that could shake the church to its foundations and doom a stricken man to an eternity of torment.

When William Paynel, a 14-year-old orphan working at the Crowfield Abbey, goes into the woods to collect firewood, he stumbles upon a hob whose leg's been mangled in a trap and learns about a long-guarded secret.

As William nurses the hob back to health with the aid of his friend Brother Snail, the hob tells him that long ago two brothers at the abbey hid the body of a mysterious winged creature in the wood.

The creature, said to have "skin the color of shadows on snow" and to stand as tall as a hut, was killed by an ancient evil fay for rescuing another hob the fay was hunting.

Now a hundred years later, whispers from the spirit world are telling hobs that the evil fay, the Dark King, has returned to Foxwist and will be forcing all hobs who live alone to join the king's court or be hunted to the death.

Back at the abbey, strange things are happening as well. William overhears a visitor frantically tell to the prior that someone is asking in town about a dead angel, which Williams realizes must be the winged creature from long ago.

William confides what he's heard to Brother Snail, who confirms the story of the dead angel and leads William to a casket locked away in the abbey. Inside is a feather the monks discovered after burying the angel.

Until now, Crowfield's curse, the secret of the angel, had been well-concealed. Brother Snail warns that if word gets out that an angel can die like a mortal creature, people may no longer think God is immortal and their faith in Him could be lost.

In this terrifying, tantalizing tome, a team of writers has come up with every scary thing you almost wish you didn't want to know.

The book begins with "Nature's Nasties," all those creepy things that may be lurking nearby, or somewhere in the tropics, or somewhere in the deep sea, or somewhere inside of you.

The first thing you see is a "Wanted" poster in sepia tone with the most dangerous critters on the planet, beginning with the mosquito, the greatest host malaria has ever known, to the King Cobra, who can take down an elephant in one bite.

In a shark-feasting diagram that follows, the team explores whether sharks are really the serial killers of the ocean we make them out to be or just poor, misunderstood fellows with a taste for human flesh (and a side of krill).

Next comes a gruesomely funny comic of guy trying to escape the clutches of a grey white shark. Ah ha! Rodney's poked the shark in the eye. But watch out, Rodney, he's darting up from behind!

Oh, no! There's red stuff oozing off your arm, Rodney. Will you meet your doom or have a cool scar to show the guys?

On another page, eight cuddly looking creatures bat their eyes at readers, while below authors reveal their wicked secrets.

Did you know that koala bears, with those cute tufted ears and velvety fur, have razor-sharp claws they're not afraid to use? Or that flipper sometimes hunts down porpoises for no good reason?

A bumbling troupe of letters jockeys for parts in a Halloween play in this adorable encore to the best-seller Alpha Oops!

As the troupe prepares for their big Halloween show, a drowsy "A" insists that "H" go first on stage for "Halloween," once again mixing up letters A-Z.

"Z," who promoted himself up the alphabet in Alpha Oops!, asserts himself once again. As soon as "H" is done with his act, "Z" shuffles forward with red eyes for "Zombie."

Just below him on the page, "N" quakes in his bed from a "Nightmare," as a spider with googly eyes dangles nearby, and what's that on the opposite page?

Don't look now, "K's" jumped into the ocean in a floatie to be a "Kraken" and "P" the "Pirate" is lashing at him from his ship.

But wait, that's not fair. "P" has commandeered "B's" role as raider of the high seas!

That was my costume, "B" the "Buccaneer" complains in his seafaring hat and peg leg, his mouth agape at the injustice of it all.

But down in the lower corner of the next page, "Z" steps forward and scolds "B." "Buck up!" he yells, acting like he's first in the alphabet, before telling "B" to find another costume.

Poor "B." It's a letter-eat-letter world. Even after "G" sprouts horns for "Goblin," "V" flutters out of a coffin for "Vampire" and "R" gets carried away by a "Raven," "B's" still stumped over what to be.

Marshall Seaver is being chased by a ghoul from his imagination and unless he can find his missing buddy Cooper, he may be forced on a journey no living being should ever take.

In this heart-pounding thriller by the author of the Pendragon series,16-year-old "Marsh" discovers his sketch of a gravedigger has come to life and wants him dead, and already may have done something sinister to best friend Cooper.

Marsh's only chance to save himself and Cooper is to convince Cooper's snippy sister Sydney to help him on a dangerous search for Cooper around her family's lakeside home, as forces of good and evil converge in this first book of a trilogy.

The nightmare all started as school let out for the summer. Marsh was looking forward to hanging out with Cooper, but then a series of unfortunate decisions he and others made shattered his plans and catapulted him into a week-long ghost story.

First Marsh had a row with Cooper, who was starting to hang out with a bad crowd and seemed to be growing up without him. Cooper had always been a wild guy, but now he was getting into serious trouble. He'd just been caught by police for scalping tickets and Sydney's boyfriend, a bully around school, seemed to have it in for him.

Then Marsh and his dad got into an argument. His dad was worried Marsh was becoming too much of a loner, and Marsh didn't want to hear it. He liked the way he was and stormed up to his bedroom. Looking for an outlet for his anger, he smashed a golden orb given to him by his late mother. As the orb broke open, blood splattered everywhere.

Or did it? Before Marsh could show the mess to his dad, it vanished as if it never happened.

Whenever anyone asked how he pieced together his monster, he'd clam up so no one would repeat his hideous mistake.

But thanks to those crazy, devil-may-care editors at Klutz, your kids can now make their own gruesome blunders with Dr. Frankensketch's monster machine.

Within the pages of this clever art book, young dabblers get to assemble and trace a closet full of yellow-eyed, tummy-bulging ghouls.

But beware, the editors warn, as you open the storage locker for the monsters, "Contents may be rabid and angry."

Not to mention brutishly cute.

Inside the book are 20 ready-made ruffians that can be torn along serrated lines into three parts, a head, torso and lower portion with legs, then mixed to create other ghouls that are terribly, adorably wrong.

By themselves, these fellows are already pretty hideous.

There's a pointy-toothed ogre with zebra-striped horns and a clown-size nose and even a four-eyed blue blob that drips goo and has dog bone hands.

For traditionalists, there's also Frankenstein's monster with flat, green head, bolts in his neck and a scowling mouth and a Dracula with menacing brow, beady eyes and bloody lips.

If you want to see your children go zombie over a book, hold this one in front of them.

Then stand back and watch their eyes bulge out and their arms spring forward to get it out of your hands.

The Emberleys latest gem is an eye-popping delight. Bold, crisp cut-outs of rainbow colored monsters growl and jiggle to a raucous rendition of the popular repetitive song, "If You're Happy and You Know It."

As monsters jump out from all angles of the page with huge, hypnotic eyes, readers are coaxed to join in with the song and show they're monsters too by acting out various prompts.

First the monsters snort and growl, then they smack their claws, stomp their paws and twitch their tails. Next comes the silliest yet, wiggle your warts, as monsters shake their spotted bodies and flip around.

Then it's time for readers to show their stuff with a roar. As your child turns the page, a jagged mouthed monster opens his jaws wide over a two-page spread, suggesting just how loud they should cry out.

But wait, isn't it time for the tail of the song?

Clear out some furniture, Mom and Dad, it's time to do all six prompts at once!

Vampires are lurking everywhere and unless you take heed, you may be cursed with bloodthirst for all eternity, the late Archibald Brooks warns in this entrancing visual guide to dealing with the undead.

As you flip through the pages of the album-size scrapbook, scholar Brooks provides everything you need to evade the curse of the Fallen Ones, including tips to detect vampires and protect yourself from their deadly charms.

Above all else, Brooks writes, don't be fooled into believing the romantic stories you've read from Bram Stoker and his ilk about vampires, for these fanged creatures are more than a glamorous fiction.

They have insinuated themselves in every corner of society and, if they want to, they can wipe out humankind forever. For now, they've refrained from doing so, but only because they need our positive energy as much as our blood.

"…the more they can corrupt human energy into something wicked, the more powerful they become, for it is from destruction of our essential humanity that they derive strength," Brooks explains. "…we are their playthings as much as their food."

Sadly, our Brooks was murdered at the British Museum on May 12, 1920, two decades after writing the book. We can all be grateful that he had the foresight to hide it in a museum cupboard, and leave instructions with his trusted friend, detective Joshua Kraik, to guard his research and take up the call of "Protector."

A Protector is a person of courage and intellect who takes on the fight to defeat the Fallen Ones. If the Protector's life is threatened, he chooses another human to take up the mantel, and as the books opens, we read the last letters Brooks would ever write, in which he beseeches Kraik to be the next vampire slayer.

Filled with scintillating details, Brooks's make-believe book is both a guide to survival and a call to readers everywhere to take up the call of vampire slayer. "Be certain," he warns, "this is not a child's game. It is a war, and we face the enemy's heavy assault dressed in our human weakness."

Friday, October 1, 2010

No one celebrates the goof in us like Klutz, and in this hilarious salute to innovation, Klutz authors once again dare us to appear ridiculous.

This time, they ask us to invent something at home that's so outrageous that it could very well flop because that's how really great stuff happens.

Like Reusable Toilet Paper on page 140 or Outboard-Powered Floaties five pages later.

Well, OK, those probably need a little more work.

In this fast-paced followup to the best-selling encyclopedias of immaturity, Klutz co-founder Cassidy and IDEO Toy Lab's Boyle come up with 162 absurdly funny inventions that could develop into really good ones! (Really!)

Then at the end of the book they challenge us to send them one nutty idea of our own.

First things first, we must think like a Klutz inventor and to do that, we'll need a pep talk from the authors on the importance of taking crazy chances and being called a nitwit behind people's backs.

"…We're huge supporters of big flops and grand failures. Not so much because we enjoy a creative face-plant, but out of the belief that it's an absolutely necessary step," they write in an intro. "Potholes, dog doo and unguarded edges are always on any path worth taking and if you're not stepping into, onto, or over any of them -- the sad truth is, you're not going anywhere."

Book 3 in Sci-Fi Sensation

What I'm Reading!

Put on a Play!

UK Children's Laureate Julia Donaldson has created a website to help teachers make dramas out of picture books! Get tips on finding the right story, making sound effects & more! For details, click here. "Acting is very good for children's self-confidence and for stimulating their imaginations and for many, it can be a great root into books and reading," Donaldson says.

Google+ Followers

A Hero Returns!

While vacationing at the beach, a toy action figure and his loyal pet are mistaken for flotsam and carried off to a dolly's sand castle. Will the duo ever do valiant deeds again? Or will they play dress-up forever? Another hilarious adventure starring Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush by Mimi Grey. Alfred A. Knopf, $16.99.

Ocean Poetry

Read a Book. Give a Book.

Put a new book in the hands of child just by reading one! Go to We Give Books, select a children's book to read online, then choose a charity from the list provided. After you read, We Give Books will send the charity a book. It costs you nothing -- only the time it takes to read a book. The project, sponsored by The Pearson Foundation, Penguin and DK, so far has donated 934,682 books!

Celebrate Earth!

A new post every day to Earth Day, April 22..

Sun Valley Receives Novels!

This April, Where the Best Books Are!passed out 20 free copies of Orson Scott Card's award-winning Ender's Game in Colorado's poorest neighborhood as part of World Book Night. World Book Night is an annual worldwide event sponsored by book publishers and sellers, and is aimed at spreading the joy of reading among people who never read or rarely pick up a book. Where the Best Books Are! requested Sun Valley Youth Center as its giveaway location, and was one of tens of thousands of volunteers selected to pass out books.

For a Valentine

A small act of love blooms into a magical gift in this lovely collaboration by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Peter H. Reynolds. Harper, $14.99, all ages.

Read with Me!

A charming collection of stories about a plucky little girl and her best pal Bear. G.P. Putnam's Sons, $16.99, ages 3-5.

Followers

For the Love of Books

Bookspeak!Poems about Books. Whimsical collages and type combine with clever rhymes in a wondrous ode to books. In one poem, a character pleads with readers to liberate him; in another, an Index competes with the book cover and Table of Contents for the reader's attention. Laura Purdie Salas (Stampede!) humanizes everything from the middle of story, as it laments that it never gets to go first, to a checked out library book that feels like it's gone on vacation. My favorite: "The Sky is Looming" about a book getting squashed by a head: "I'm buried under cheek and drool / and hair three inches deep. / My reader drifted close, then far, / then gently fell asleep..." Charmingly illustrated by Josee Bisaillon, Clarion, $16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages.

News You Can Use!

Help Ringgold Reads restock their upper-grade libraries in Georgia after the devastating tornadoes of April 27. Buy a book or make a donation.

Help Uprise Books Project get challenged books into the hands of unprivileged teens. Join the Kickstarter campaign here.

Booktrack releases e-books with soundtracks to help boost readers' imagination and engagement. Watch a sample of The Ugly Ducklinghere.

Got a layover? You have to get this.

Bring along a glue stick and the wait will be bliss. Workman, $16.95, ages 7 and up.

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2011 School in Need

Where the Books Are!has adopted Fairview Elementary School as its first-ever "School in Need" for 2011. As extra books accumulate over the year from reviewing, I'll box them up and bring them over to help fill empty shelves in the school's library and classrooms. If you'd like to join me in helping this wonderful school, please send me a message here.

Quotes from Authors, Books and the Kids Who Love Them

"In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies." (Dr. Seuss)

"...Very often when crazy people are not actively being crazy, they are less crazy than regular people who are a little bit crazy at all times." (Big Audrey in Daniel Pinkwater's Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl)

"Grown-ups and ants are a lot alike. If they relaxed a little, they'd have a better time." (Bean in Annie Barrows's Ivy & Bean: What's the Big Idea?, Book 7)

"Wishes are slippery things. You have to be very specific or you can get exactly what you wished for and still end up with nothing."(Cynthia Lord's Touch Blue)

"Treat yourself with respect and ignore people who don't treat you with dignity."

(Grandma Penshine in Tracy Trivas's Wish Stealers)

"I will respect the tree and not throw away his pieces."

(Tate Miller, 6-year-old reader, on choosing to erase a misspelled word and correct it, rather than toss the paper and start over.)

"I can read in red. I can read in blue. I can read in pickle color too!"(from Dr. Seuss's I Can Read With My Eyes Shut)

"How do you catch sunbeams to make them work for you?"(from The Kids' Solar Energy Book by Tilly Spetgang and Malcolm Wells)

About Me

Need just the right book?

I'd like to help! Email me your questions and I'll select them to answer in this feature.

Q. I want my 6-year-old to get excited about reading but I'm having a hard time wading through all of the readers, knowing which ones are better than others. Are there some series you'd recommend more highly than others?

A. My three boys have been a great testing ground for early readers, and I can tell you from experience that the books that engaged them the most were funny in a way they could appreciate. Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie Books (Hyperion Books for Children) are brilliant. My youngest laughs out loud as he reads them and gets a charge out of saying sound words like "Oof!" that help break up the new words he's learning. We're also big fans of the Toon Books, including the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor-winning Stinky. Published in a cartoon format, the books are funny, easy-to-read and wonderfully quirky. Other stellar books include Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson Books (Candlewick Press) and the hilarious new Max Spaniel series by David Catrow (Orchard Books).

Contact Me!

Tender Tribute to Sally Ride

Books Not to Miss.

Little Treasures, Endearments from Around the World. Children bat their lashes and giggle in delight, in this sweet ode to terms of affection by Jacqueline K. Ogburn. Illustrator Raschka captures the subtlety of a child's expression -- from a shy glance to a beguiling look -- all with loose, spare brush strokes. Houghton Mifflin, $16.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages.

I Don't Want to Be a Pea! Hugo the hippo wants to be a princess for the Fairy-Tale Fancy Dress Party and tells his best friend Bella the bird that she should be a pea. But that isn't fair. Bella doesn't want to be a little round vegetable, and in no time the two are storming off in opposite directions. Talk about two peas in a pod! Could it be that a few costume alterations could make them both happy? An adorable tale about compromise, written by Ann Bonwill and illustrated by Simon Rickerty. Atheneum, $14.99, ages 2-6, 32 pages.

Heart and Soul. Caldecott winner Kadir Nelson writes like a man who's weathered life and now sits on his porch recalling how things once were, in this marvelous history of the African-American experience. Equally compelling are his portraits: faces etched with hardship, yet glistening with determination. Balzer + Bray, $19.99, ages 9 and up, 108 pages.

Sammy in the Sky. A girl reflects on all the things she loved about her late dog Sammy, then celebrates his life by blowing bubbles into the sky. As the bubbles float up on a breeze, a cloud that looks like Sammy seems to bound across the sky after them. "I love you, Sammy!" she yells to the cloud. "You're still the best hound dog in the whole wide world." A beautiful, reassuring story about coping with a lost pet. By Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barbara Walsh, paintings by Jamie Wyeth, Candlewick, $16.99, ages 4-7, 32pages.

The Green Mother Goose, Saving the World One Rhyme at a Time. Mother Goose favorites are repurposed into catchy green rhymes, in this clever book of whimsical poetry and collages. On one page, Jack Be Nimble turns off the tap; on another, readers chant, "One, Two, We Can Renew." By Jan Peck & David Davis, illustrated by Carin Berger. Sterling, $14.95, ages 4-8, 32 pages.

The Art of Disney Epic Mickey. The creators of the groundbreaking 2010 video game Disney Epic Mickey explore how it came to be, in this lush coffee table book filled with concept art, designs and in-depth analysis of the game. By Austin Grossman, with a foreward by Warren Spector. Disney Editions, $40, all ages, 160 pages.

Tallulah's Tutu. A little girl thinks she can become a great ballerina in just a few classes, but when she doesn't earn her tutu as soon as she'd like, she gives up trying. But will her love of dance call her back to class? By Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Alexandra Boiger, Clarion, $16.99, ages 4 and up, 40 pages.

The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. Beatrice thrives on being perfect until one day she makes a very public mistake, and discovers that it's okay to let go and laugh at herself. By Mark Pett & Gary Rubinstein, illustrated by Mark Pett. Sourcebooks, $14.99, ages 4 and up, 32 pages.

Slightly Invisible, Featuring Charlie and Lola. Charlie and Marv have made an invisibility potion to look for sneaky creatures, and don't want to be bothered by Lola. Only now Lola's friend Soren Lorensen has gulped down most of the potion. Will they need Lola's help after all? Written and illustrated by Lauren Child, Candlewick, $16.99, ages 3 and up, 40 pages.

Tumford the Terrible. Tumford the cat is always getting into mischief and though he feels bad about it, he can't get himself to apologize for his mistakes. Then one day at the fair, Tumford gets into the worst trouble yet and discovers the wondrous effect of saying he's sorry. Written & illustrated by Nancy Tillman. Feiwel & Friends, $16.99, ages 3 and up, 32 pages.

My Name is MinaAnd I Love The Night. Anything Seems Possible At Night When The Rest of The World Has Gone to Sleep. Mina McKee, the quirky, endearing neighbor girl from David Almond's highly acclaimed 2008 debut Skellig, journals about herself and the world around her in this lyrical, intimate prequel. By David Almond. Delacorte Press, $15.99, 272 pages. Read an early review from The Guardian here.

Liesl & Poe: Locked away in the attic with only a sketchbook to keep her company, a lonely girl named Liesl looks to a ghost to help her escape from her cruel stepmother and lay her father's ashes to rest. Little does she know the box containing his ashes has been mixed up with one containing the greatest magic ever known. A tender, beautiful novel by bestselling adult author Lauren Oliver. HarperCollins, $16.99, ages 8-12, 320 pages.

The Apothecary: Janie and Benjamin discover elixirs they never imagined could exist, as they embark on a dangerous quest to save Benjamin's father, a London apothecary, and prevent nuclear disaster. From award-winning adult author Maile Meloy comes a sparkling children's debut in which the extraordinary becomes possible. G. P. Putnam's Sons, $16.99, ages 9 and up, 365 pages.

The Son of Neptune: In a camp miles away from where demigods Jason, Piper and Leo inherited a quest to rescue Hera, queen of the gods, a new camper has arrived who appears to be the son of Neptune, god of the sea, in this much-anticipated second book in Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus. The story, the second of five, is told alternately by Percy, Frank and Hazel, and takes place about two months after the first book, The Lost Hero. Disney-Hyperion, $19.99, ages 9-12, 544 pages

2002 Classic Returns!

Paul O. Zelinsky's fantastic movable tribute to the nonsense song "This Old Man" will be reissued Sept. 29 with new cover art! Dutton, $20.99, ages 2-7, 8 pages. Read Zelinsky's essay on the making of this amazing book of flaps, tabs and wheels here.

If in Amherst, Mass...

Stop by The Eric Carle Museum, a magical place that showcases picture book art from around the world. The latest exhibition (June 18-Oct 9): the work of author-illustrator Tomi Ungerer, "Chronicler of the Absurd." Among his acclaimed picture books, The Mellops Go Flying (1957), The Three Robbers (1962), Flat Stanley (1964) and Moon Man (1967).

For Little Hands

In Memory of Diana Wynne Jones

The beloved author of Howl's Moving Castle and the Chrestomanci series passed away March 26 in Bristol, England, after a long struggle with cancer. She was 76. Jones will be sorely missed. Read Neil Gaiman's tribute here.

Free App!

Ever roam a bookstore, wondering how you'll pick from all of the children's titles? Download bestselling author James Patterson's free Kids' Book Finder Apphere to help sort through all of the options.

Publisher Giveaways and Offers!

Awesome Adventure! Sweepstakes: Become an Awesome Adventure member at HarperCollins to play free games and be entered for weekly giveaways. Every time you complete a game as a registered member, you'll be automatically entered for a book prize and, in some cases, an IPod Touch or $50 Best Buy gift card as well. Among the books being given away, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney, Seekers #1: The Quest Begins by Erin Hunter and Freddy! King of Flurb by Peter Hannan. For more details, click here.STACKS Book Club: Sign up here to receive emails from Scholastic's children's book club, STACKS, and be the first to know about Scholastic's newest books, celebrity videos, widgets and games. Those who sign up will also be eligible to win monthly sweepstakes.